Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Up until
roughly one month ago, my sole experience with running included running late to
things, running out of money, and running out of patience. My workout
philosophy sounded something like this: unless a man with a functioning
chainsaw is literally pursuing you, there’s no good reason to be running.
However, recently, I’ve experienced a personality shift (something possibly
akin to maturation) that has led me to up the exercise ante. I’m almost 25 and
I’d like to challenge myself more, mentally and physically. I want to set
actionable goals and achieve them. I want to do more than run until I burn 300
calories just so that I feel less guilty about my craft beer
indulgences. Instead, I’d like to run until I burn 500 calories so I also feel
less guilty about my baconator. *Growth*.

So, Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running*
fell into my lap at a pivotal time. This book is concerned with the
physical and psychological elements of long distance running. Murakami is a
well-known and respected novelist—best known for A Wild Sheep Chase,
Norwegian Wood, and Kafka on the Shore—who attributes a portion of
his writing skills to his workout regimen. Thus, the memoir is a laidback approach to exposing his marathon-training
process and how that discipline intertwines with his ability to uniquely put
words on a page. I hope to become a capable runner; moreover, I’m
paralyzed in the incipient stages of discovering who I am as a writer and what
bearing that holds on the future. Talk about a match made in heaven. Of note,
this memoir is based on What We Talk
About When We Talk About Love, a collection of short stories by Raymond
Carver that inspired the play in Birdman.
Birdman is a 5-hump movie that I recommend you see.

Before all of you non-runners and non-writers check out, I must note that this
work reads surprisingly universal. While the content is specific, his message
is generally (and perhaps even unintentionally) inspiring. Murakami started running
at age 33, and at the time of publication (age 58), he had completed 24
marathons, several triathlons, and one ultramarathon (62 miles)—not to mention
all of the half marathons and smaller races in between. THAT IS ABSURD. Is he a goddamn robot? This is clearly a man
worth paying attention to. Because his running and his writing go hand in hand,
he also carves out 3-4 hours each morning to focus exclusively on writing. It's impressive that he can manage to discuss such a vast catalog of incredible feats and
give you a sense that your life has meaning, rather than leave you feeling like
a worthless piece of shit.

I
had never really considered the profound parallel between writing and long
distance running before cracking this open. Both require a degree of innate,
foundational skill, as well as the potential to stretch your abilities through
practice until you hit a fragile peak. Finishing is important—so honing your
expertise incrementally creates endurance that upholds a lasting quality to
your craft. If you ever feel a talent drought, you can in some ways supplement
it with your reservoir of concentration and stamina built by the demands of
running every day. Novelists thrive on creative energy which is in part
supported by physical energy. Murakami’s chief “goal of exercising is to
maintain, and improve, [his] physical condition in order to keep on writing
novels” (Murakami, 177).

Additionally, writing
and running are very self-centered practices that rely on inward
motivation—“the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to
be (Murakami, 10). Consistent, disciplined activity gives that inner voice a
much needed microphone. Because pain—physical and emotional—is a crucial
component to personal growth, forming meaningful habits in the form of regular
exercise can seep into overall self-improvement. It’s all about increasing your
potential as a person, the bar rising almost imperceptibly. While that might
seem self-evident, it’s easier said than done. The idea is to not get burnt out
and kill yourself like some of the great writers who led licentious lifestyles
(Hunter S. Thompson, Hemingway, Kerouac—in his own way, etc). But let me be
clear—I’m still gonna get my drank on sometimes. Currently plotting whether I
want to go the beer or liquor route for my Modest Mouse concert tonight.

I don’t know about you guys, but lately I’m struggling
with prioritizing my desires. I love my friends/family/significant other—they
make me laugh and keep me sane, I have a job with responsibilities so that I
don’t end up smelly on the side of the road, I enjoy being social—I’m young in
an amazing, thriving city that’s always poppin off, I put in time at the gym
because like metabolism and stuff, and I need my alone time—I get my
introspective swag on and I’ve gotta do me. I also require 9 hours of sleep a
night to avoid being a huge bitch, plus dreams are tight. Ain’t nobody got time
for all of that. Learning how Murakami deals with similar time-constraint
struggles illuminated my own understanding of the rhythm that I want for my
life. He emphasizes how indispensable it is to concretely determine how you wish
to distribute your time/effort in order to reach a balance that has focus and
is true to your self. If you abide by a clear-cut philosophy, you can make the
most out of your precious few years of existence. He says, “it’s far better to
live with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps
you do that” (Murakami, 83). It’s really an inadvertent self-help book.

That
being said, Murakami and I are not the same (duh). I spent some of my reading
time lolling at how far I am from his legendary level. There are some minute differences.
For instance, he usually runs empty-minded, creating a meditative, mental void.
When, I run, I listen to raunchy rap music and picture myself looking fabulous.
I’ll run through dance routines in my head and tell myself that I’m really good
at certain moves. Usually, I look something like this:

There are
also some larger differences. He has an incredibly strong sense of self, while
I’m stuck somewhere between *I wanna get my shit together and life’s too short
so whatever*. He is confident in who he is, which creates a comforting clarity
to his daily actions. The memoir is nothing flashy; it is written with poise rather
than pretentiousness. It also contains an ongoing reflection on aging that inspired
me to take advantage of my own youth and vitality. As he gets older, he is
discovering his own pace—and not just how many minutes his miles are. Retaining
his workout regimen with age has been a challenge, but he accepts it with grace
and honors his physical decline. Bow to your shin splint sensei.

Overall, I
give the book 4 out of 5 camel humps. His writing is lucid and
compelling and I can’t wait to read his other novels. There is always a thrill
when you come into contact with a new author—a dialogue where you figure out
how their particular voice speaks to you. He has proven to me that he writes
well in a relatable way; soon I’ll discover if his running routine has
helped fill his wellspring of creativity, evidenced in his fictional narratives.

*Murakami, Haruki. What I Talk
About When I Talk About Running. New
York: Vintage Books, 2008. Print.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

As I Lay Dying* is a title all too
fitting for its contents. It describes verbatim how I personally felt while
reading it prostrate. This was my first Faulkner read and I desperately wanted
to like him. A name like his appeals to my obnoxious side because it affirms
that I’m reading “one of the greats”—a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner no
less! I was instantaneously disappointed. I dove in to his literary waters so
sanguinely and emerged horrified, as if I’d been pushed into a
crocodile-infested swamp. I kept thinking get
me the hell out of here as I dejectedly trudged through all 267 pages.

The
story centers on a Mississippian family of seven which quickly becomes six when
the matron, Addie Bundren, passes. To fulfill her dying wish that she be buried
in Jefferson—a city far from their own—the children accompany their father in a
wagon journey beset by physical and emotional obstacles. Just as Addie
confronts the Great Unknown, her family faces unfamiliar territory while they
get her earthly arrangements in order.

One
redeeming quality of this novel is its range of narration. Each chapter is told
from the viewpoint of a different character. For instance, “Darl” is told by
Darl, “Cash” is told by Cash, “Vardaman” is told by Vardaman, “Anse” is told by
Anse, etc. Most of the time, the characters get more than one chance to express
their POV. I think we can all agree that Southern names in the early 1930s are
ridiculous and that the diction is generally bleh. Then again, nowadays there
are children named Apple. Nevertheless, depicting the same scene from a
multitude of angles unlocks a deluge of juicy family secrets. As the novel
progresses, a back story develops and certain suspicions piece together nicely.
The chapter expressed from Addie’s own perspective after her death was by far
the most articulate and entertaining.

This potential
face-saving structure is rapidly overthrown when you find out that the majority
of the characters suck. They are simpletons with an unwavering trust in God and
a completely impractical self-righteous sense of duty. Their stubbornness
annoyed me to no end and the fact that everyone was putting themselves at risk
of dying just to bury someone who was already dead was something that I
couldn’t get behind. Somebody get this lady in the ground STAT.

Of course, although their actions
bothered me, they were tied to some heart-tugging themes. There was a recurrent
emphasis on self sufficiency and superfluous struggle—a mentality of not being
beholden to others. I would have swallowed my pride hella fast if it meant I
could sleep in a bed rather than a barn—I’m not Jesus in the manger last time I
checked. An extension of this belief is that a hard life filled with diligent,
patient work is divinely rewarded. But overall, “the reason for living was to
get ready to stay dead for a long time” (Faulkner, 169). That sure makes me
want to go to work every day!

Without
giving too much away-- because the faint, sporadic surprises are really all
this book has going for it—there is also a concern with loyalty, both in death
and in life. When someone dies with guilt and lies, do those untruths linger
and haunt or do they disappear with the body? There is a delicate balance
between both sides of existence and impermanence is not easily accepted.
Faulkner embodies this notion concretely in events and more subtly when he plays
with words like “is” and “was” to experimentally toy with states of being. It
is worth noting that the book contains some profound insights into human nature.
The conception that people are
“built” just like things is driven
home by the wood motif. Additionally, eyes are a repeatedly stressed symbol.
His character descriptions revolve around eye movements and optical imagery. As
windows into the soul and gatekeepers of secrets, they both divulge and witness
incidents that they should not.

To be fair,
there are moments of dazzling eloquence in this work. Here are two examples:

·“It
is as though upon a face carved by a savage caricaturist a monstrous burlesque
of all bereavement flows” (Faulkner, 78)

·“We
go on, with a motion so soporific, so dreamlike as to be uninferant of
progress, as though time and not space were decreasing between us and it” (Faulkner,
107)

I enjoyed reading that. That was nice. But it’s fluff. You can’t
just have a shitty story with a few beautiful sentences littered throughout and
expect me to walk away focusing on the bright side. His words have a
Joseph Conrad flair, and sure enough, the back of the book likens Faulkner to
his Polish contemporary. My reservations with As I Lay Dying and Heart of Darknessare striking similar. Consider this passage instead:

·“Cash tried but she fell off and Darl jumped
going under he went under and Cash hollering to catch her and I hollering
running and hollering and Dewey Dell hollering at me Vardaman you vardaman you
vardaman and Vernon passed me because he was seeing her come up and she jumped
into the water again and Darl hadn’t caught her yet He came up to see and I
hollering catch her Darl catch her and he didn’t come back because she was too
heavy he had to go on catching at her and I hollering catch her darl catch her
darl because in the water she could go faster than a man and Darl had to
grabble for her so I knew he could catch her because he is the best grabbler
even with the mules in the way again they dived up rolling their feet stiff
rolling down again and their backs up now and Darl had to again because in the
water she could go faster than a man or a woman and I passed Vernon and he
wouldn’t get in the water and help Darl he wouldn’t grabble for her with Darl
he knew but he wouldn’t help…” (Faulkner, 150).

No, I didn’t fall asleep with my head smashed on the
keyboard… that’s how the novel was actually written. I get that Faulkner was
trying to muster up an image of chaos through his speech pattern, but that is
not enjoyable to read. He takes stream of consciousness too far—beyond the
realm of tolerability. Moreover, his unusual use of punctuation—especially with
dialogue—struck me as bewildering rather than inventive. And that’s precisely
how I’d sum it all up: terribly confusing in a feeble attempt to be early-20th-century-edgy.
There are so many amazing books out there with fabulous writing that are
simultaneously sensical. Read those!

Clearly,
I’m not crazy about this overly revered garbage. I don’t appreciate having to
brain-strain to get through bulky, uninhabitable sentences just to reach the
stunningly beautiful ones. Please convey your story to me in a less brutal way.
I always rate with the act of recommendation in mind. If I graciously bestow a
book 3 humps or more, that means I would recommend it. If it’s a 3, it might
not be for everybody; if it’s a 5, I think that everyone should read it at some
point. As I Lay Dying gets 1 out
of 5 camel humps. Truthfully, I would not suggest reading this to my worst
enemy. I’m more intrigued by the metal band named after the book, pictured
below.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Breakfast of Champions*. I experienced
one of these winning meals only two weeks ago--when I went temporarily insane
and voluntarily ran 3 miles before bottomless brunch. Things were poppin off
for the LGBT pride parade (woop woop), so I heartily downed several mimosas
while we waited 2 hours for our food. I’m too little for that nonsense, so I
ended up like this:

Adulthood!!

This
Vonnegut novel turned out much better than my embarrassing afternoon. Published in 1973, it emerged after his
acclaimed works Cat's Cradleand Slaughterhouse-Five.
As such, he ingeniously capitalized on his previous fictional characters that readers
already knew and loved. For instance, Kilgore Trout is a minor character in Slaughterhouse-Five who I found
endearingly nutty and unsuspectingly wise. I was disappointed that he wasn’t
more in the forefront; so, I was pleasantly surprised to encounter him as a
B-of-C main character. Trout is a profuse writer, though not successful by
conventional standards, who creates outlandish science fiction tales strategically
imbued with currents of deep-thinking. These stories usually describe the customs
and belief systems of alien races on far away planets. For example, “Gilgongo”
is an anti-conservation story about a planet with a creation problem. Every
single hour, new species come into being, which is overwhelming and
unpredictable for the planet’s residents. Consequently, they try their best to
systematically eradicate whole species. In the end, the planet is suffocated by
a blanket “composed of passenger pigeons and eagles and Bermuda Erns and
whooping cranes” (Vonnegut, 89). Like I said…wacky but thought provoking. Trout
eventually collides with another main character—Dwayne Hoover, a wealthy
Pontiac dealer who loses his marbles. Not in the sense that he’ll have a difficult
time playing Mancala… he literally becomes deranged.

While these
two characters are certainly a large focus, Vonnegut emphasizes that even the
seemingly insignificant peripheral ones hold key roles. He does this
implicitly, by intricately weaving everyone in and out of each other’s lives
and connecting them by ties, both loose and tight. He also conveys this message
explicitly, when he explains, “I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write
about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts
would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others
bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order…If all writers would do
that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that
there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the
requirements of chaos instead” (Vonnegut, 215). Additionally, his several
allusions to communism help bolster this notion of shared significance.

The excerpt
above uses the word “I”, openly offering the author’s perspective, which is one
of my favorite aspects of this novel. Vonnegut himself is an actively involved
character who comically interjects himself into his own book! Towards the end
of the story, he announces to readers, “I had come to the Arts Festival
incognito. I was there to watch a confrontation between two human beings I had
created” (Vonnegut, 197). In past novels, he consistently mockingly refers to
“the Creator of the Universe”. Here, in a *meta* sense, he is the Creator of the Universe, acting as a puppeteer to guide
what characters do and say. Yet admittedly, the characters sometimes shock him
and don’t act exactly according to plan. SoOoOoOo we have the ingredients for a
deep discussion on determinism. Hook me up with some philosophical soup.

In veritable Vonnegut fashion, Breakfast of Champions is in many ways
concerned with free will or lack thereof. Some of those ways include:

The notion of human beings as specifically
programmed machines. We might all just be complex compilations of
chemicals/molecules trying to interact with other chemicals/molecules of
varying assembly. Our history of slavery reflects the idea that humans are
machines that can be employed for physical labor. Perhaps, though there is a
sacred part in each of us that is not dictated by machinery—our individual
awareness. But perhaps not!

The belief that humans are controlled by consumerism. In the name of “progress”, we are inevitably bombarded by advertisements,
which we use to navigate life. He repeatedly reminds us that the name of the
book “is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc., for use on a breakfast
cereal product” (Vonnegut, 1). As machines, we take in this data (the cereal
box says the cereal tastes good) and spew out formulaic responses (this cereal
tastes good).

The impression that ideas are transmitted,
augmented, and belittled not by the basis of their merit, but because of
friendship/enmity. Truth becomes relative because friends agree with friends
and enemies disagree with enemies, thus rendering certain ideas “common sense”
in some circles and their opposing ideas “common sense” in others.

Echoes of recurring sentiments found in his other novels. In reference to Trout, Vonnegut says, “But his head no longer sheltered ideas of how things could be and should be on the planet, as opposed to how they really were. There was only one way for the Earth to be, he thought: the way it was” (Vonnegut, 106). How very Tralfamadorian of him.

Vonnegut’s use of foreshadowing. As the Creator
of the Breakfast of Champions universe,
he knows how the book is going to end and he repeatedly tells us what will
happen before it actually does.

The erratic nature of his text, with page breaks
and intermittent drawings. This novel is laden with felt-tip pen illustrations—a
style that I find unique, relevant, and sometimes even impressively skillful. The
aforementioned quote in which Vonnegut strives to “bring chaos to order” is
expressed even in the atypical presentation of words on a page, fragmented by
his artwork (Vonnegut, 215). For your viewing pleasure:

The possibility that Vonnegut, like Kilgore
Trout, is writing this novel for an alien race. He often refers to “planet
Earth” or “the wrecked planet” in a detached manner that implies he is speaking
to an audience unfamiliar with the world’s structure. Just like we find Trout’s
stories of alien activity slightly ridiculous, viewing our planet from an
outsider’s perspective sheds light on our more peculiar habits and how we view
ourselves as “free”.

These metaphors and themes unload
a series of questions on readers. Are we unknowingly squandering our free will?
Does embracing the concept of free will lead to constructive activity or
demise? Is there space for individual creativity in a world devoid of free
will? Can alcohol as both a social and private lubricant change our machinery
or chemical composition such that it enables or inhibits autonomy? What is the appropriate
role of government and environmentalism in a universe dictated by determinism? As
usual, Vonnegut leaves me with more questions than I have answers. While I’m
tempted to demand that his grandiose ideas need more elaboration, he himself
confesses that writing this book simply helped him “clear [his] head of all the
junk in there” (Vonnegut, 5). He might have some well-articulated opinions on
the subject but that doesn’t necessarily lead to concrete solutions. For
instance, I love (and this is often a turning point where Vonnegut-haters
vehemently disagree) when he forces readers to deal with the ugly facts of life
by framing situations in pure, simplistic terms. He satirically strips away all
of the frivolity so common in literature and reaches the core, nagging concern
behind a phenomenon to expose its absurdities. At one point, he states, “Viet
Nam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists
by dropping things on them from airplanes” (Vonnegut, 88). This is a perfect
example of how Vonnegut addresses intense subjects—usually involving
oppression—without directly giving us “the answer” to the problem. Instead, he
equips us with ways of thinking; he arms us with a manner of seeing the world
that makes it tolerable to live in a place where oppression exists.

This is all to say—don’t read this
book if you don’t want to think. If you get on your summertime carefree grind,
by all means, turn to something less intellectually exhausting. But I feel
quite strongly that everyone at some point should read Vonnegut in some form.
Just like the last two, I give Breakfast
of Champions 5 out of 5 camel humps and I find the three Vonnegut novels
I’ve read equally compelling in their own way. He is refreshingly capable of
probing larger-than-life issues head on while maintaining an entertaining plot.
His writing is intricate and intentional—with carefully placed symbolism and
themes that continue to pleasantly haunt you well after you’ve put the book
down. He is full of the good kind of surprises—the ones that don’t piss you
off—and I’m excited for what else he has in store for me. Next up: Player Piano.

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Lyndsay West

About Me

I’m a 25 year old lover of reading and writing. I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and I graduated from the University of Virginia in 2013. Currently, I live in New York City making my writing mark on the world via freelance work. Other interests include religious studies, philosophy, psychology, dancing, and live music.

Follow my twitter: @humpdayhardback

*Words underlined/highlighted in red are links to websites with more info on the topic.